Nobody would be so bold as to say the Mavericks are back in the hunt in the Western Conference. That might even be borderline delusional considering their season. But 2½ weeks after Dirk Nowitzki went crashing to the American Airlines Center floor writhing in the pain of a high ankle sprain and strained knee, they’re far from the anticipated fall from grace into the lottery as so many anticipated.

You might even say the injury galvanized the team.

Taking it to another level, Nowitzki coming back after missing just four games and leading them to a 3-1 burst has shut everyone up about his lacking toughness and leadership. Playing on one leg, he’s averaged 22 points and 8.3 rebounds, and that includes an 11-point performance against Seattle in a game he was needed for only 26 minutes.

OK, they’ve slid out of the home-court race and are essentially locked into the seventh seed. Nonetheless, a lot of things have happened during these past eight games that have changed the Mavericks from a team that allegedly panicked by trading depth and youth for aging Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd.

Most important, they started beating good teams. Nowitzki surprised everyone by coming back on April 2 against the arch-nemesis Warriors and sparking a 25-point blowout. Two days later, they had the Lakers on the ropes in the Staples Center – primarily due to Nowitzki’s brilliant 27 points on 13-of-19 shooting – only to suffer a defensive collapse down the stretch in a tough four-point loss. Then they pulled an about face on Sunday at Phoenix, with Nowitzki scoring 32 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in a 105-98 win.

It’s been more than just him, though. During this 3-1 run (5-3 since the injury overall), coach Avery Johnson has been more inclined to let the team play – with Kidd at the helm – than micromanage as he so often does down the stretch of games. Johnson is so intense and strong-willed that it has often unsettled the team. Plus he hadn’t allowed Kidd to use his instincts to run the team – which is why they got him in the first place.

Over these past eight games, Kidd has averaged 12.3 points, 10.4 assists, 6.6 rebounds and 2.9 steals. An even better example of his growing confidence is his always erratic shooting, which has stabilized to 43 percent from the field and 83 percent from the free throw line (plus a stunning 50 percent (12-of-24) from 3-point range).

Also coming to life have been Josh Howard and Jason Terry.  Howard averaged 30.8 points during the four games without Nowitzki and 26.9 during the eight-game stretch, while Terry has 22.5 points and 4.8 assists since Nowitzki’s return, shooting 57 percent from the field in the process. They’ve learned that third-year forward Brandon Bass is more than just a body to throw into the game, scoring in double-figures three times in the eight games and in the last two averaging 16 points on 67 percent shooting.

Now that they’ve gotten over the hump, it will get serious Thursday night with the Jazz coming in. It means a lot for both teams, considering the Jazz have lost 10 of their last 12 in the American Airlines Center and still have to prove they are a worthy road team going into the playoffs. This is another test for Kidd with only two wins against plus-.500 teams since he joined the Mavericks in February in what should be a super matchup against young point guard Deron Williams … who often looks remarkably like a young Kidd.

After that, the Mavs head to the Pacific Northwest against a battered Portland club and the pathetic Sonics again before finishing the regular season at home against the Hornets.

There are no guarantees at this point, although short of a complete collapse their two-game lead over the Nuggets and Warriors certainly appears secure considering the uneven play of those two teams. And it really doesn’t matter who they play in the first round. They’ll be just happy to be there and flying under the radar for a change.

It might even set the stage for a first-round upset, and wouldn’t that be a strange turn of events for this crew? 

In the daily drama As the Western Conference turns, the Dallas Mavericks are the latest team to be in trouble and it isn’t likely to get better any time soon.

Not only did the Mavs blow a 12-point second half lead and lose 88-81 to the San Antonio Spurs Sunday afternoon, but they lost All-Star forward Dirk Nowitzki for what owner Mark Cuban predicted to be two weeks after the game.

With 3:18 left in the third period and the Mavs leading, Nowitzki raced back on a fast break for a brilliant block of Ime Udoka’s drive to the glass. But Nowitzki landed awkwardly on his left leg that crumbled as he hit the floor writhing in pain – suffering a lower leg injury that won’t be detailed until later Monday. He was helped off the floor and attempts to put weight on it heading to the locker room were fruitless.

“I fell awkwardly and my left leg got caught underneath me,” Nowitzki said in a statement released by the team Sunday after the game. “I am going to get re-evaluated in the morning (Monday) and I hope to have more information then.”

Right now, not much information coming from the Mavericks camp is good. Not only did Nowitzki go down after the block, but Tim Duncan got the rebound for the Spurs and converted it into a 3-point play to give the Spurs their first lead of the second half. They never trailed again.

It was the third loss in a row for the Mavericks – all at home - and they have fallen to just a half game ahead of the eighth place Warriors and two games ahead of the ninth place Nuggets. Granted, the losses were to the Lakers, Celtics and Spurs, but this is the first time they’ve lost three consecutive games in Dallas since December of 2004.

More disconcerting is how they have struggled to adjust to the much ballyhooed trade that brought Jason Kidd (plus Malik Allen and Antoine Wright) to Dallas in exchange for Devin Harris, DeSagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Ager and retired Keith Van Horn.  The primary reason that some didn’t like the deal for the Mavs was steeped in Kidd’s limited window as a star at 35, and the loss of Diop as a defensive presence inside.

That was supposed to be a big picture issue.

Instead, the snapshot has been far more disconcerting than anyone anticipated.

Seventeen games into it, the Mavericks still aren’t comfortable with Kidd running the point. They are 9-8 overall, but 0-8 against teams with winning records and 3-7 against the West. Instead of being the leader on the floor at crunch time, coach Avery Johnson clearly is prickly about leaving Kidd in the game because of his poor shooting. While he’s always been an erratic shooter, other coaches have always let him play through it because of what he does for everybody else, not to mention his rebounding and defense.

Still, Johnson’s point is reflected by Kidd shooting 3-of-10 Sunday and 4-of-21 with 10 total points the past three games – his 21 assists in the three games notwithstanding.

His uneven playing time has ostensibly become a particularly sore subject between Johnson and owner Mark Cuban, who spent a fortune for the deal – coaxing Van Horn out of retirement for a ludicrous $4 million just so the salary cap figures could work - and then there is the forthcoming luxury tax. Money isn’t the issue here, though … winning is.

During one stretch Sunday as the game was slipping away, Johnson didn’t even have a point guard in the game, and after a timeout, brought in recently signed free agent Tyronn Lue instead of Kidd. It didn’t help matters any, and just brought more attention to Kidd’s ineffectiveness thus far.

On the other hand, without Nowitzki, it may very well force Johnson to play smaller and faster which should play into the strength of Kidd. Can he afford to play 6-7 Josh Howard and 6-5 Jerry Stackhouse up front together for the bulk of games against the big front lines in the West – becoming dependent on zone defenses and center Erick Dampier? Certainly the three inches Devean George has on Stackhouse for defense and rebounding doesn’t give them much more comparing the overall impact of the two players. And that also translates into Jason Terry, all 6-1 of him, playing most of the game with Kidd in the backcourt if Stackhouse moves up front more often.

Or perhaps he’ll just remain conventional with young power forward Brandon Bass or the aforementioned Malik Allen starting in place of Nowitzki. They’ll have to play both forward and center at least some of the time anyway.

Seven of the final 12 games are on the road for the Mavericks, including three of the next four. At 44-26, they are on the brink either way you look at it. With the precarious advantage over the streaky Warriors and Nuggets, both of whom won close games against playoff-bound teams on the road Sunday, the good news is two of the next four games for the Mavs are against the battered and lowly Clippers. On the flip side, the other two are huge games at Denver and Golden State that will have enormous playoff ramifications. Add to that, the Lakers, Suns and another game with the Warriors during this two-week stretch, their fate may be decided before Nowitzki returns.

On the heels of blowing the 2-0 lead in the Finals of 2006 and the incredible first-round loss to the eighth-seeded Warriors last season as a top seed, the hangover has been palpable all season. The Mavs won 67 games last season, including 31-10 on the road. They are 15-19 going into this week away from home and light years behind last year’s team-record pace with essentially the same core team as a year ago.

It may be just a touch too early to refer to the Kidd deal as a panicky move that will necessitate other moves in the offseason … but not by much.

Now they’ve lost three in a row in Dallas and Nowitzki, presumably for an extended period of time. It’s time for Johnson to let Kidd prove his leadership and in many ways justify the trade. The possibility of them slipping out of the playoffs isn’t likely, but it certainly is very real.

Should that occur, the wrath of Cuban won’t be far behind and the Mavericks as we have known them the past 5-6 years may very well be history.

In this wacky NBA season when as many as 10 teams are legitimate contenders to take the title away from the defending champion Spurs, three major stars have changed teams in the past two weeks. That unprecedented movement has changed the landscape of the already fierce competition in the Western Conference.

When the Mavericks finally acquired point guard Jason Kidd from the Nets along with Malik Allen and Antoine Wright in exchange for Devin Harris, Trenton Hassell, DeSagana Diop, Maurice Ager, retired forward Keith Van Horn, two first-round picks and $3 million, it gave the Mavs the tough leadership they’ve been lacking while on the brink of a title the past three seasons.

But is it bigger than the Suns’ acquisition of Shaquille O’Neal from the Heat for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks on Feb. 6?

And how do either one of them compare to the Lakers receiving Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, two first-round draft choices and the rights to Marc Gasol on Feb. 4?

They obviously were all major moves with the intent being winning now. Consider for a moment the Suns (37-16) entered the All-Star break with the second-best record in the West – just percentage points behind the 36-15 Hornets, while the Lakers (35-17) have the third-best record, the Spurs (34-17) fourth and the Mavs (35-18) fifth. You want a great stretch run? This promises to be one of the most exciting races of the past 20 years considering nine teams are within 4½ games of the top spot in the West.

But to have players of this magnitude traded in such a short period of time – and some potentially busy days remain before the Feb. 21 trade deadline – it has to make you wonder if anything else is about to happen. Will the Nuggets make a move for Ron Artest or Sam Cassell? Will the Jazz look for help up front with the likes of Artest or Ben Wallace?

Considering the movement of Gasol, O’Neal and Kidd, who can doubt anything at this point?

And yet, there is a difference between the three big deals … and the Lakers win, big time.

Both the Mavs acquiring Kidd and the Suns getting O’Neal are gambles that may pay dividends in the short term, but they will suffer ramifications in the long run.

For the Mavs, giving up Harris and Diop is a questionable decision, if only because Kidd has maybe two more years of effectiveness after this season on legs that will turn 35 next month. At the same time, they will have lost the interior defense of Diop while sticking with Erick Dampier, who is at best good for a couple games in a row before he’s hurt, ineffective or just indifferent. And by the time Kidd is done, Harris has the potential to grow into an effective, lightning-quick point guard comparable to Tony Parker.

Kidd does give them the toughness and leadership that has prevented them from winning it all in recent years. Yes, they’re still near the top of the Western Conference with their record. But that’s because they have more overall talent that nearly every team in the league. They’re 12-14 on the road this season compared to 31-10 a year ago, and just how they would compete with the best of the West in the postseason is highly debatable. This move reeks of desperation, and yet with Kidd hitting the boards, distributing the ball and his relentless defense, they’re better suited for a playoff run this season. Beyond the 2008 playoffs, though, all bets are off.

The same goes for the Suns getting O’Neal. He’ll be 36 in three weeks. He’s played in only 32 games this season, as his 330-pound frame continues to slide down that slippery slope toward retirement. He has been more ineffective than his 14.2 points and 7.8 rebounds would indicate. His knees, hips, feet and quads – essentially his lower extremities, period – have virtually no tread left. Of course, he will be a factor on defense because he has been one of the greatest centers ever, knows the game, and at 7-1, 330, still takes up an enormous amount of space. He can pass the ball on offense and dunk.

But this still flies right in the face of coach Mike D’Antoni’s offense, while ignoring how ineffectual O’Neal is in the pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop, which is the bread and butter of what All-Star point guard Steve Nash does in the half-court offense.

That’s not to say Marion has more value than O’Neal. He had become a constant pain to the organization, whining in the locker room about shots, and wanting a huge extension that was far greater than his value. Nonetheless, he’s the guy who matched up defensively with the other team’s best scorer. He’s the one who made the steal or the block, grabbed the loose ball or the big rebound. Boris Diaw will run the floor, move the ball better and hit some open jumpers. But he doesn’t play at the same speed. Grant Hill has a little left in the tank, but not what Marion brought to the table either. And let’s not forget that Nash has back and shoulder issues at the age of 34.

This move maybe doesn’t have the same long-term ramifications as the Mavs giving up Harris and Diop, plus there’s always the outside shot that O’Neal really can get it together and have some juice left for a playoff run. But this is probably the last gasp for that to happen for the Big Question Mark. It’s not a bad bet, just another short-term gamble.

As for the Lakers, there was no gamble at all. The Grizzlies were tired of losing and paying Gasol so much money, and he was tired of being there. What the Lakers gave up to get an All-Star 7-footer amounted to a few shirts, two pairs of pants and some free airline tickets. The Lakers had already helped their depth in the off-season and the bench was remarkably effective around Kobe Bryant. Their problem isn’t the roster. It’s injuries. Not only did they lose young, blossoming 7-foot center Andrew Bynum to a knee injury that will keep him out another month, it’s impossible to know how the 20-year-old will respond to his first injury and the heat of a playoff run. And now what was considered a minor dislocation to the pinky finger on Bryant’s right hand has manifested into a torn ligament and surgery that would keep him out six weeks has been recommended.

This trade was a steal. But the injuries will make it difficult for the Lakers to win it all this season. Bryant has to make a decision quickly about what to do with his hand, and neither option is good. But even if they hang in there somehow and make a run at it this season, that’s not the point. They will be better next year with Bynum having another season of growth and playing next to Gasol and Lamar Odom, with Bryant and either Derek Fisher or Jordan Farmar at point – plus that swollen bench. So if the Lakers can’t quite get it together this spring, it’s easy to go on the record right now as saying the Lakers are the favorites to win the NBA title in 2009.

So which of the three teams made the best deal?

No contest … now if all those fair weather Lakers fans calling for general manager Mitch Kupchak’s head will please step forward, grab your ankles and take your medicine, we can get this over with. Mitch, will you please take the big paddle with the holes in it? And when we’re finished, the knuckleheads in L.A. will have no alternative but to look at you and respond, “Thank you sir, may I have another.”

The NBA Finals start tomorrow, and you are the general manager/coach in this fantasy series.

In an excruciating turn of events, you lost your point guard in yesterday’s massive media session. He got his leg caught in the mass of wires from television cameras and fell in the throng of media members as he was coming down off the podium in the corner of the gym (if you’ve ever seen this mess, you’d understand how this could happen). The consequence was a torn knee ligament in his knee.

Everyone is irate and the NBA humiliated.

Consequently, you get your choice of point guards for the series from all the non-competitors.

Two future Hall of Fame vets – Jason Kidd or Steve Nash; or two stars on the rise, Chris Paul and Deron Williams are on the list. Granted, Williams and Paul are only in their third season, but both are on the brink of greatness, and both Kidd (35 in March) and Nash (34 next month) are close but not quite on that slippery slope.

It’s tough to justify Paul (22) or Williams (23) due to their lack of experience, but both are so explosive and do so many things well, it’s worthy of discussion. Paul is smaller, slicker and quicker with his hands and the ball for the Hornets – similar to Nash – averaging 21.1 pts., shooting almost 49 percent from the field, 36 percent from long-range and .884 from the line, plus 10.4 assists and 2.4 steals. Meanwhile, Williams is bigger and stronger like Kidd, with a better long-range stroke than anybody but Nash – averaging 19.3 points, 9.2 assists, while shooting .517 from the field, .396 from 3-point range and .782 from the line.

It’s a tossup between the two youngsters in a lot of ways because it’s so early and they’ve yet to establish substantial playoff profiles. Would you pick one of them instead of the vets?

There’s plenty to think about in the case of both Kidd and Nash. Kidd has played in 100 playoff games, including the 2002 and 2003 NBA Finals with the Nets. Nash has played in 97 postseason games, but has yet to make it to the NBA Finals has been to the conference finals with the Suns twice.

They are still the premiere passing point guards in the game today, making passing the ball on the break not a skill but an art form with either hand.

But they reach those moments from divergent angles and skill sets. Kidd is the triple-double king of this era with his ability to clean the boards, find his teammates and score when necessary. And while he has hit 3-pointers at a tolerable .333 pace, he has barely been a 40 percent field goal shooter in his career. What makes him special is his defense – strength and hands – better than any other point guard of the era with the exception of his childhood mentor Gary Payton.

Nash won back-to-back MVP awards in 2005 and 2006, taking the run-and-gun Suns to a new level of play and really creating an accelerated style the NBA hadn’t seen in years. He is not only a spectacular passer, but one of the best shooting point guards in NBA history – shooting better than 50 percent from the field the past four seasons, nearly 47 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the free throw line. And while Kidd’s Achilles’ heel is his shooting and his knees, Nash is a sieve on defense with a reluctant back and shoulder issues. Oh, he has great hands, but his feel for the game is built for scoring, not preventing it.

My first reaction is to take Paul, having the best year of any point guard and leading the surprising Hornets to first place in the Southwest Division.

Or I could take Kidd because of his extraordinary ability to get the ball in so many different ways, and then make things easy for his teammates to score. The problem is what happens when he has to shoot it.

Or there's Nash ... if he can’t get the ball to a teammate for an easy score, he can do it himself.

That leaves the ultimate question -- do you go with offense or defense? In most cases I’d go with defense, but in this one, at this moment, I’ll take Paul. He has no playoff experience, but he has to start somewhere.